IKEA Plans Emissions-Free Deliveries In 5 Cities

IKEA is well-known for using solar power at some of its stores, and for offering solar panels for sale within some of them as well. The company just added a new green wrinkle — emissions-free delivery in 5 cities by 2020. If you live in NYC, Paris, LA, Amsterdam, or Shanghai you could get your furniture and furnishings delivered directly to you by an electric vehicle. At some locations, that might include solar panels.

“For us it’s crucial to grow our business in a sustainable way — that’s why we’re speeding up the transition to EV in five inner city areas. By 2020 all our home deliveries in central Amsterdam, Los Angeles, New York, Paris and Shanghai will be by EV or other zero emission solutions,” said Ikea Group CEO Jesper Brodin.

Pretty cool, eh? IKEA isn’t stopping there though — not by a long shot. The company wants to have 100% of home deliveries be performed by EVs or zero emission vehicles by 2025.

“By switching to EVs for home deliveries at this pace, IKEA is setting a strong example for clean transport in city centers, where zero emissions zones will one day become the norm. They are enabling their customers to play a key part in accelerating the roll out of electric vehicles overall,” explained Helen Clarkson, CEO of The Climate Group.

Obviously, IKEA is a very visible mainstream company — in other words, it’s not a green activist group. It doesn’t have to advocate in any particular way or direction, but it’s innovating along sustainable lines.

Continuous innovation, unsurprisingly, has been identified as important for business success.“Growing companies need ideas, and companies that generate lots of good ideas tend to have profitable growth. But it’s unlikely that simply goosing up the ideation rate is what made these companies grow profitably. A more likely explanation is that both healthy ideation and net income growth are a result of a third factor: a culture of innovation.”

Innovation in the name of sustainability is also tied to a greater purpose, which is taking care of the planet and all life forms on it. So, it isn’t just innovation for its own sake, although innovation alone is worth pursuing.

Will we one day be able to order pre-fab construction components from IKEA to assemble a net zero energy home, and have them delivered by electric vehicles? Those instructions better be accurate and easy to follow.

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